DALLAS — The starting quarterback, returning from a multi-week injury absence, threw an interception on the first drive. The running backs’ ball security issues resurfaced in the second quarter. Another episode of inaccuracy from the quarterback cut short a potential second-half scoring opportunity in the red zone.
There was plenty about No. 1 Texas’ performance to criticize, and none of it mattered, as the Longhorns dominated No. 18 Oklahoma 34-3 on Saturday in a game that could have easily been worse than the Cotton Bowl scoreboard indicated.
It was far from a perfect display, and that may be the scariest part for the rest of the SEC. Texas, flaws and all, is still dominant. The Longhorns (6-0, 2-0 SEC) still have plenty of room for improvement.
“Our best ball is yet to come,” Texas safety Michael Taaffe said.
Let’s first be frank about the teams the Longhorns have faced so far. None of them would be considered elite. Two of them were ranked at the time they played — Michigan and Oklahoma — but both had major flaws, particularly in the passing game.
But that’s not Texas’ problem. The Longhorns can only play the schedule they’re given. And there will be challenges ahead, with No. 5 Georgia visiting the Forty Acres next week, a season-ending showdown looming with rival Texas A&M — the only 3-0 SEC team at the moment — and sneaky-tough trips against better-than-expected Arkansas and Vanderbilt sandwiched in between.
In the meantime, we can only measure Texas on what we’ve seen against everyone that has lined up across from them, and so far, it’s pretty damn good.
“I think sometimes people look at the score and it’s like, ‘Well, the offense needed to go score 50 points for it to look the way it’s supposed to look,’” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “When you play great defense and you hold a team to three points, 34-3 is a heck of a win in this type of ballgame.”
Texas could have easily found itself in an early hole after a rough opening quarter as quarterback Quinn Ewers shook off the rust from a multi-week oblique injury absence, but the Longhorns’ dominant defense lifted them up. Sure, the Sooners entered with a true freshman starting quarterback and down five receivers, but Oklahoma had found a way to climb out of a double-digit fourth quarter lead at Auburn.
“This is football. Injuries are part of the game,” Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said afterward. “We’ve got good players. They’re young. They don’t have the same track record necessarily, but we’ve got good, capable players.”
Texas did what it was supposed to do given the situation, suffocating the Sooners and never letting up. The Longhorns harassed quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. all day, finishing with 11 tackles for loss and five sacks. They clogged up the middle of the field in the passing game, forcing Oklahoma to attack mostly the perimeter. They rarely allowed yards after contact.
Linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. and edge rusher Colin Simmons led the way, but the depth of Texas’ talent was on full display: 26 players recorded a tackle on Saturday.
“We don’t ever want to be one-dimensional,” Sarkisian said. “We want to have the ability to play well in all three phases and … if one of those phases might be a little off, like the offense was early, the defense and special teams can continue to play really well until that phase gets itself going. And we felt like we built a team to do that.”
The Longhorns can win by hanging half-a-hundred. They can win with dominant defense. Their special teams can change the game; Silas Bolden showed off the return prowess that made him an attractive prospect in the transfer portal out of Oregon State. Whatever style a team wants to play, Texas can match it punch-for-punch.
After the Longhorns held the Sooners to just three points on their first three possessions, the offense got going. Ewers settled in, firing a strike to DeAndre Moore while on the run then hitting tight end Gunnar Helm for a touchdown pass to get Texas on the board.
Texas forced consecutive fumbles and took full advantage. The running game got going as sophomore Tre Wisner and the Longhorn offensive line imposed its will. Wisner showed patience in traffic and ripped off a 36-yard second-quarter run that led to a touchdown after he fumbled only to have a hustling Bolden jump on the ball in the end zone.
Sarkisian, showing his trust in Wisner, went back to him for the first play of the next series. Wisner rewarded him with a 43-yard touchdown run and a 21-3 lead that was more than enough. Wisner finished with a career-high 118 yards.
Ewers wasn’t using his injury absence as an excuse for his uneven performance.
“I should have definitely made those throws,” he said afterward. “I’m not going to tell you it’s rust because I practiced the last two weeks. It’s solely on me.”
But Texas is well-stocked at the position regardless, as backup Arch Manning showed in his two-and-a-half games in place of an injured Ewers.
This Texas team is loaded with speed, size, strength and depth. And it has yet to play its best football. The Longhorns know it, and that heartens Sarkisian, who witnessed a fun yet focused postgame locker room.
“We enjoyed the win … But it’s almost like our team knows there’s more work to do,” Sarkisian said. “Two years ago when we won the Golden Hat, you would have thought we won the Super Bowl.
“This year, it was like, ‘OK, we got the Golden Hat back, let’s put it in the trophy case, let’s keep grinding, let’s keep going.’ I think that’s the mentality of our team.”
There’s a balance between fun and focus. Sarkisian, who said earlier in the week that he had never had a Fletcher’s Corny Dog — the iconic State Fair of Texas food item — entered the postgame news conference holding one in his left hand and yelled, “I got my corn dog, y’all,” to the assembled media. His review: “It’s amazing.”
The players had fun, too, with Hill taunting former Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield on social media afterward and Sarkisian jokingly putting his face in his hands when Hill was asked about it.
But Texas center Jake Majors, with a bandage over the bridge of his nose and dried blood underneath, best embodied his team’s postgame mentality. It wasn’t all smiles. It was businesslike.
“We have so much (room to grow),” Majors said. “We have a lot of football left. The good teams enjoy the win more than the great teams. The great teams move on. That’s what we want to be.”
The top-ranked Longhorns are great, but they still can be better. And that’s pretty scary for the rest of the SEC and the rest of the country.
(Photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
